Author to discuss debut novel and the true cost of water

Thursday

Feb 21, 2013 at 6:00 AMFeb 22, 2013 at 12:00 AM

By Joni Koogler BANNER CORRESPONDENT

The Beaman Memorial Library is the place to be next Tuesday, Feb. 26, to hear author Maryanne O’Hara’s talk about her debut novel, “Cascade.” The author’s presentation begins at 6:30 p.m., and it involves a theme, flooding of a town to make way for a reservoir, that may draw the interest of many area residents.

In 1897, more then 4,000 acres of Boylston, West Boylston, Clinton and Sterling were flooded for the Wachusett Reservoir to provide a water supply for Boston. According to O’Hara, the flooding and obliteration of sections of the towns – or entire towns – is not unique to the area.

“This has happened in almost every state. It’s happened all over the world,” O’Hara said. “ ‘Cascade’ has made so many people e-mail me with really touching stories about this happening to them. It’s been fascinating.”

O’Hara grew up in Sturbridge and, as a young girl, was fascinated by the tragic end of towns flooded to form the Quabbin Reservoir.

“I can remember when I was 10 or 11, the first time I ever saw the Quabbin, and I suppose I really understood the meaning of eminent domain,” O’Hara said. “I was just never able to get that idea out of my head of a town being just completely wiped out.”

As an author, O’Hara wrote several short stories about such ill-fated towns, “but I couldn’t really hold the story to a short story,” she said.

After a rough draft in 2002, it took O’Hara until 2006 to commit to writing a novel, and then took until 2010 when “the short stories came together as a novel,” she said.

The fictional town of Cascade, where the novel takes place, is closely modeled after Enfield, the Massachusetts town disincorporated in April of 1938 to make way for the Quabbin.

Cascade, though, has more appeal than the farming community of Enfield. Cascade cultivates and promotes the arts, with its Shakespearean theater as the center of cultural life in the town.

The book’s main character, Desdemona Hart Spaulding, deals with inner artistic longings, a loveless marriage, the need to care for her dying father, and the earnest desire to preserve the life of her town, against the Depression backdrop of 1935. Spaulding’s trying life decisions are woven into a fascinating tale with a much unanticipated ending.

Mark Baldi, president of the West Boylston Arts Foundation, sponsor of O’Hara’s talk, felt the theme would strike home with many residents.

“The book could easily have taken place here,” Baldi said. “We thought a lot of people could relate to the story.”